Bruce Wayne, who witnessed the murder of his billionaire parents as a child, swore to avenge their deaths. He trained extensively to achieve mental and physical perfection, mastering martial arts, detective skills, and criminal psychology. Costumed as a bat to prey on criminals' fears, and utilizing a high-tech arsenal, he became the legendary Batman.

How dangerous can Batman be?

So clearly it's well established that Batman has a strict "no killing" rule that he's put his foot down on upholding...

But what if Batman was the accidental cause of someone's death, or critically injured some thug? Like, if he gave a guy a heart attack or if another paranoid thug shot somebody he mistook for Batman hiding in the shadows? How does he avoid mistakes like that? Does he have a contingency plan if something like that does go wrong?

And if he was pushing his limits, how brutal would he allow himself to get at his worst without breaking his own rule?

I think the answer really depends on who is writing it, and their interpretation of Batman, as well as how far we extend the universe we're looking at (like the Nolan-verse and Arkham games). In the comics, I would say as a rule, his limit is no hesitation breaking bones, but would avoid paralysis, maiming, or permanent brain damage. Possibly with maiming being the limit he is pushed to in the most extreme cases. However, I don't think this would extend to things like non-intelligent aliens, or even entities as deadly as someone like Darkseid. He may well kill when confronted with those.

If we extend the universe we're talking about, I think if you consider the Arkham games, he'd be pretty non-chalant about dealing out maimings and brain damage. Hard to say, though, as obviously these things are largely contingent on the player and how they play the game (for example, if you do an inverted take down to a thug, he would be fine, more or less. If you choose to cut the rope with a batarang, many of the heights would kill, or at least shatter the neck and spine of the person). All things considered, we'd probably ignore that universe.

In the Nolan-verse, he arguably killed Two-face. So there's that...

In terms of avoiding the mistakes, I cannot think of solid examples, but I'm sure such things have happened. Hell, in the New 52, Batman and Robin touched upon that as they are targeted by a group of thugs who all have lingering injuries or conditions due to fighting Batman, and he shows seemingly no remorse for his actions. At the end of the day, if I were personally to come up with a ruling looking at the big picture, I'd vote his line is literally "No direct killing of a human/humanoid being" with all other levels being permissible based on circumstance.

In terms of avoiding the mistakes, I cannot think of solid examples, but I'm sure such things have happened. Hell, in the New 52, Batman and Robin touched upon that as they are targeted by a group of thugs who all have lingering injuries or conditions due to fighting Batman, and he shows seemingly no remorse for his actions. At the end of the day, if I were personally to come up with a ruling looking at the big picture, I'd vote his line is literally "No direct killing of a human/humanoid being" with all other levels being permissible based on circumstance.

Exactly the way i would word it. If Batman is caught in a pinch with 10 thugs ready to kill him, he will go as savage as necessary to survive without actually using a "kill shot".

If, however, he were to cause internal bleeding or something similar while escaping i can't see him being regretful for more than a page.

Likewise, if said thugs are armed and shooting at him at close range, he will try to manipulate the situation by disarming them or at least getting above so they are shooting away from themselves. But if none of this is possible and one of them takes a stray bullet it's more likely that he will complain about how untrained they are rather than blame himself.

Well, I see it as because of his no killing rule, he never went along and prevented all of Ra's Al Ghul's plans of severely exterminating most humans, and denied becoming head of the league of shadows, so really he could easily help kill off most humans.

Well, I see it as because of his no killing rule, he never went along and prevented all of Ra's Al Ghul's plans of severely exterminating most humans, and denied becoming head of the league of shadows, so really he could easily help kill off most humans.

I never really thought of it that way, but that's a good point. If we want to look at how potentially dangerous Batman could be, if he wanted, he's been in a position more than once to wipe out a lot of people.

I like the manner which Nolan portrays the Batman no-kill rule. It basically stops short of blatant murder, but if you die in the scuffle or if you've inconveniently left yourself with no exit strategy, then you're SOL. It's not Batman's problem.

This doesn't go as far as Bob Kane's Batman (who frequently killed). But it also doesn't create these ridiculous stories which we have seen in comics where Batman is standing between the Joker dying and say someone like Huntress. These situations just make Bruce look like a hypocritical boy scout.

He's either a badass who's committed to cleaning up the streets of Gotham, or he's a boy scout. Watching writers yo-yo this aspect of his character is annoying.

One last point. In real life, an officer of the law would be perfectly within reason to drop someone like the Joker or Two-Face...on sight! We shouldn't feel like Batman is somehow on the same level as the Punisher if he lets nature take its course in certain situations. Sure, he's straddling a fine line, but that's one of the things that makes his character so interesting.

The only time I really see Bats get upset over this sort of thing is if its a young punk (someone he might have "saved"). Otherwise he doesn't really seem to distinguish much between broken leg and possible brain injury (I think he justifies with a combination of the words vengeance and scum etc etc). Though to be fair, I do notice the most damage moves are used in tight corners/desperation type scenarios (given the choice it's usually something like a batarang to knock the gun away)

@DarKnightNoir: No no no. Batman in the move, before he jumped out of the train with Ra's, said: "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" heck, Ra's could've even held on to Batman if he had to.

It also depends on who you're talking about. I know that when most people say Batman, they mean Bruce Wayne, but you have to also remember there have been 2 others (maybe more? I only know of 2) to wear the cowl. Jean Paul was an assassin who became crazed and killed without remorse and struck fear into Gotham for months while Bruce recuperated after his fight with Bane. All of Gotham, even Commissioner Gordon didn't know it was anyone else (at least for awhile, even if it was another man, he was still Batman)... He just believed he had lost his mind. Dick didn't kill anyone as far as I know, I don't know so much about him as Batman.

Bruce Wayne, as has been said "killed" in Nolan's films.

You don't have to kill to be considered dangerous, either. Beating someone to within an inch of their life and crippling them also can make you a danger, which I know Bruce has done.

In reality, Batman would be killing people semi-frequently. You cannot bang people in the head hard enough to fracture skulls without occasionally causing death. The brain is just too sensitive and unpredictable.

There was a Batman Confidential story where some guy was mad at Batman because he was going to die from a long term effect from a batarang to the head (or at least the guy believe the batarang to be the cause). I thought that was an interesting idea, and I would like to see if further explored.

@DarKnightNoir:

You really think so? I'm sure I could save some lives in Africa by donating to those, "Feed the poor," charities, but I don't. Am I a murderer? Are you?

You really think so? I'm sure I could save some lives in Africa by donating to those, "Feed the poor," charities, but I don't. Am I a murderer? Are you?

This is actually a fairly clever thought on your part. However, I think we can both see that your "feed the poor" scenario has no actual similarities to the Ra's Al Ghul/Batman scenario depicted in Batman Begins. A more honest comparison might see you walking down the street --having just withdrawn $150 from an ATM-- and seeing a skin and bones man holding a sign that says "haven't eaten in 9 days, anything helps." Nothing about the situation appears to be dishonest or a hoax. The man is tiny, unhealthy looking, and you have $150 in your pocket. In 20 and 5 dollar bills, we'll say. Now, a thought enters your head that goes something like, "I could spare $5..." but you dismiss it and leave. The man dies three hours later.

Alternately, and more extremely/absurdly, you see a man with a gun to his head, and he says, "if you tell me not to I won't." Again, there is no foul play, this is an honest man in a weird situation. If you said nothing, despite knowing that you could have simply said "don't do it," you would absolutely be morally responsible for the man's death.

But reigning it back into Batman... Saving Ra's would have posed no problem to a man like Bruce Wayne. He's a badass. He makes it his business to be a bad ass. If it was any other human being, he would have and could have easily held the persons weight and safely removed them both from the situation. Joe fucking Chill (were he alive in that canon) could have been in that train, and Bruce would have saved him. "Out of sight, out of mind" is a cliche, but for a reason. Psychology really does work that way. So, in short...

You're clever, that was sharp of you. But you're wrong. Batman went out of character and killed someone.

Edit: didn't even respond to that first part of your post... Partially related, but somewhat off topic. There is an episode of the Animated Series where Batman interrogates a man in front of his family (the guy is a crook) and scares the hell out of his kid, and so on. It's a great episode, but anyway. The point is that months later it's discovered that Wayne went out of his way to make sure the man received a job at Wayne's company. He goes out of his way to be nice to the man, and even asks him how his boy's doing. If Batman knowingly caused longterm damage or potential death, he'd probably.. I dunno, pick up the medical bill? and see to it that the victim received the best treatment? Doesn't seem that odd.

Don't get me wrong, Bruce letting Ra's die was totally out of character for the Batman of the comics. I'm not arguing with that. I am just challenging your statement that allowing someone to die is the same as killing them from a philosophical standpoint.

That is an interesting example from the Animated Series. I've been rewatching them recently with my girlfriend since I got her hooked on Batman. I haven't managed to get her so hooked that she reads comics by herself, but she likes it when I read to her, and she asked if I knew of any good Batman cartoons.

Anyway, Batman always takes care of those innocents that get hurt by his actions, but I'm not so sure he is so generous with the scum...nor should he as far as I am concerned, but I recall examples such as him knocking out LexCorp security guards and making mental notes to give them a job at Wayne Industries since they would doubtlessly be fired.

My girlfriend just got into Batman recently too, haha. Movies, cartoons, comics, whatevs. It's been a lot of fun. The episode I was referring to is from Volume 4 (post-art direction change) and is called "Second Chances" I believe. Aside from Nightwing's mullet, it's real good.

My girlfriend just got into Batman recently too, haha. Movies, cartoons, comics, whatevs. It's been a lot of fun. The episode I was referring to is from Volume 4 (post-art direction change) and is called "Second Chances" I believe. Aside from Nightwing's mullet, it's real good.

Nice.

I never watched that final version of the series because it left Fox at that point, and I did not have cable. I believe those episodes are online, so I look forward to seeing them when I get there with my GF.